


when my heart was lighter; or how i came to be here

by kareskun



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 18:57:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11812176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kareskun/pseuds/kareskun
Summary: Star Wars Femslash Week: Day 3 - Modern AUThis is a story about love.





	when my heart was lighter; or how i came to be here

**Author's Note:**

> this is not so much as a modern au as a total and complete disaster also when I wrote part of this I put on bruce springsteen on shuffle and the first song that came on was jersey girl so this is blessed with good energy

Rey’s smile flashed in the rear view mirror. The desert continued rolling by. But Jess awakened from her stupor, and looked again. 

“Hey.” She shoved Poe. “Slow down. SLOW DOWN.” Black One lurched as Poe stepped on the brakes, and her heart lurched with it. She looked in the rear view mirror again. There she was, hair flattering in her face, hope blinking in her eyes, as she frantically waved out of her car. 

Hope started pounding on Jess’ heart too, dragging love with it, pounding to be let in. God, she wanted to be out there. How the fuck did you open up these windows?

“Fuck fuck fuck”, she started muttering as she struggled to roll down her window. “God, what the fuck is wrong with your car, Poe? What the fuck …” She pushed down with all her might. There wasn’t car window going to be in the way of her murderous hope. Sand grains started to bite in her face as she stuck her head out of the window. 

“Hey! Watcha –” Something was in her throat. Just talk normally, Jess. It wasn’t like she was trying to shout above roaring engines to the one person that she had loved dearly (and still did) and left her standing, in the middle of the desert. “– doing here?” A tentative smile lifted one corner of her mouth. 

In the meantime, Rey had pulled up besides Jess, and they were now racing side by side through the dusty midday heat. Well not Rey, because Rey was hanging out of the window on the other side, desperately gesturing over the roof of her pick-up truck.

*** 

The tip of Jess’ nose was starting to get red, and her breath rose in steaming clouds from her nose. She breathed out again just to see it form in midair. Her boots tapped over the sidewalk and the grey clung to the sky. At least it wasn’t raining or snowing. She just had to get to the hardware store and make it back to the garage before her nose fell off her face. 

A bell jingled as she pushed open the door to the store. She flashed a smile at the counter, where Rey was sitting as usual, her hands busy fidgeting with some small project or other. Jess made her way over to the array of screws. Surveying the display, she dug in her coat pocket for the screw she was looking for to replace. 

“You know that, when a guy comes in with an old as fuck car, and shit isn’t running anymore, so you open it up, and it falls apart in your hands, and you’re just like. Ya. I don’t think anyone makes those replacements for any of those parts anymore.” She started conversationally as she fingered through the different screws.

“So you come to my scrap pile of a store, huh?” The answer came from the counter.

“Well you’re the only one who might have this shit other than ebay.” Jess held up the screw in her hand. “Any chance you have this one?”

Rey’s buns bounced as she disappeared beneath the counter. When she surfaced, she was lifting a big box of an assortment of screws. She let it crash on the counter. Some screws skipped out of the box. 

“All original parts that I collected while disassembling a variety of things.” A sigh escaped Jess lips.  
An hour later she had not only found enough of her screws, but had also collected the other odds and ends she needed, and Rey was ringing her up. And yeah, Jess had forgotten her money. 

“Just put it on the tab.”

“Cool. Have fun freezing your toes off!” 

“Will do. Why don’t you join me?”

Rey’s face scrunched up, unbearably cute. 

“I will not go out into any weather in which you cannot at least wear a t-shirt.”

Jess smiled and collected her purchases. The bell jingled on her way out.

*** 

“Guess I’m …” The wind ate the rest of Rey’s words. Jess didn’t think they were any good anyways, judging by the way Rey flinched at the end of them. 

“What?” Jess shouted over the noise.

“I wanted to. I really did! But … I couldn’t … Or I didn’t think I could. The words arrived at Jess spottily, with interference that made her understand just every second word. She couldn’t keep this up.

“Hey you … uh. Want to discuss this in the back of your truck?” 

“What?” 

“The back of your truck!” Jess gestured to the bed of the pick up. Rey must have understood, because she started climbing out of her window in earnest and slowly making her way to the back. Jess pulled her head back inside. Karé, Iolo, and Rose were still asleep in the back.

“Hey, could you maybe possibly please pull up against the back of the pick up?”

“Why –” Poe smiled slowly. “That’s dangerous, you know.” His words were probably designed to discourage her, but the smile on his face destroyed the effect. 

“Dangerous”, Jess pointed to her forefinger, “and me.” She pointed to her middle finger. A lonely chuckle escaped her at the symbolism of it. She wound her two fingers tight and stuck them into Poe’s face. 

Predictably, he laughed a short, rough laugh, and pulled up over against the bed of Rey’s truck. Again, Jess stuck her head out of the window, but this time she didn’t stop there. She wound her upper body out of the car and then put her feet on the window ledge as she slowly stood up. The wind and the sand was tearing at her. But she continued until she was standing on the ledge. Poe drove over a bump that almost made her fall straight into the back. Rey was already there, waiting to catch her.

Then, Jess jumped over onto the pick up, her legs shaking as the truck rattled over the road. She stumbled one, two steps, till she caught herself, trying to avoid touching Rey with all her strength.

*** 

Rey was trying to tell her something over the music, exaggeratedly mouthing her words, but Jess could only stare at her. The slightly messy and rough aura that always surrounded her. The sweat that was making the escaping strands of hair stick to her forehead. Her nose was doing that scrunching up that always turned Jess’s stomach around. 

“How can I dance with another when I saw her standing there …” Jess started humming and took Rey’s hand. “What were you saying babe?” 

“I’m just”, Rey leaned forwards to speak into Jess ear, “so happy!”

Jess was happy too. At the moment there was no better place to be in than Rey’s arms. She spun her around and layed her head on Rey’s shoulder. Jess started humming again.

“Shake it up baby … twist and shout … come on come on come on baby … come on and work it on out …”

Rey laughed and the sound reverberated through Jess body. And they continued to rock back and forth to their own music in the middle of the crowd. 

*** 

Sunshine played upon Rey’s face. They were lying in bed, and Rey was snoring slightly. And Jess was thinking. Well, she was thinking that she must be thinking about something. However, whatever she had been thinking about had escaped her. It had drifted out of the window, carried by Rey’s breath. 

So Jess lay there, musing on nothing. But then Rey’s eyes slowly creaked open and her thoughts jumped back to her, like they were connected to an invisible bungee cord. And Rey rose from her slumber, and her snoring stopped abruptly, and she threw up her arms, and she yawned. Still bleary-eyed, she turned around to Jess. 

“Are you – wait a second” She yawned again. “are you making breakfast or am I?”

Jess barely lifted the corners of her lips.

“I love you.” 

Equally serious, Rey took her hand.

“I love you too.”

That morning, at breakfast, Jess just – started talking. 

“Rey, I love you. And.” She looked down at her eggs. “I’m moving. Well, we are moving. The garage’s moving.” Jess had to take a break. She cut off part of her egg. Part of the white. 

“And –” Her eyes rose to Rey anxiously. Rey was sitting there, unmoving, caution showing in every line of her face. Jess tried to start again.

“We’re having to. It’s a long story. But we’re going to be going to the middle of nowhere I think. Hot and sandy.” 

Jess cut off another piece of egg. She cut carefully, around the yellow.

“And – it’s all of us. The whole gang. I guess no one wanted to be left alone here. But.” 

She stabbed her fork into the yolk. It burst, and began to slowly leak.

“I guess what I’m asking is whether you would – like to come with me.”

The yolk spread around her plate. Rey was silent. Jess cut the remaining in half. She put it on her fork, and the yellow dripped. One. Tw – two. . . Three. Rey clear her throat.

“I don’t know.” Four. “Yes.” 

*** 

It was nearing winter, yet again, and her nose was starting to get cold. Jess rubbed her hands over her face. She had been standing in front of Rey’s house for two hours now. There was no light and all curtains were closed. Two hours ago, Rey should have been down here, and they should have driven into the sunrise, towards the heat. Together. 

The coldness slowly spread from her nose. It spread everywhere, into every tiny crack of her body. And it nested there, made itself home. It numbed her brain. Her heart. It numbed that little flame of love, that she had been nurturing for weeks now. Months. That grew with every smile Rey cracked, with every laugh that she let loose. 

But the cold was there now. To impenetrable for that little flame to heat. Yet it didn’t give up in defeat. It locked itself in a tiny nook, it buried itself deep in Jess’ soul. A solitary tear rolled down her face. The late autumn air blew in her face. What are you still doing here, it seemed to say, go away. But her feet wouldn’t respond. They stayed there, glued to the pavement. Jess suspected it was there the little flame had gone to.

It had been five hours and Karé laid an arm around her shoulders.

“She won’t come.”

*** 

Jess and Rey were sitting in the back, leaning up against the back of the cab. There was space between them, in every dimension. A cautiously erected safety zone. The wind was whistling past them. When Jess stared back, she could see everything. And nothing. A vast landscape with nothing but the occasional rock. Jess thought, if you would look into my head now, it would look exactly the same. But if you turned around those rocks dotting the emptiness, you would find everything Jess had been burrowing. Everything that was trying to break free right now. 

“Why are you really here.” Jess asked the wind. Next to her, Rey started speaking faintly. 

“I couldn’t let you go.” But why right now? Why not five days ago when nose was freezing in front of her house? When she stood there for five hours waiting for someone that wouldn’t come, just to show up now.

“Why?”

“I.” Rey hesitated. “I couldn’t.”

Jess didn’t answer.

“Leave, I mean.”

“But why didn’t you tell me then? You could have told me, Rey.”

“I wanted to go. But then, that morning, I remembered why I was there in that city. I – my family left me there. I was waiting for my family to come back. And. I want them back so badly. But you are my family too.

“But I guess that morning, my imagined family that I never had was more important. And it shouldn’t have been. They’re never gonna come back anyways.”

Rey’s face broke up, and suddenly Jess could see all that longing on there, all that want, all that missing for – someone. Someone who was there. Who didn’t leave her. But Rey had left her standing there. 

“Well, I guess, I might just go looking for them.”

That must mean Rey – Rey was coming with her. Or wanting to. If Jess wanted her to. If Jess forgave her. She saw that as clear as day on Rey’s face. There was hope and all the pain she had carried around. She would continue to carry around. And there was all of her love for Jess. It was everything she had, laid out in front of her. 

Yet, Rey had hurt her. She bore the scars. 

At the end, it wasn’t easy. But the choice was the right one. Jess felt it in her bones. It was the right one, and her bones were singing, and her heart was singing.

**Author's Note:**

> other people: make really god stuff me: here take the garabge (come tell me how horrible it was on [tumblr](http://divinetheta.tumblr.com)


End file.
